By next year,
James Levine
says his comeback at the Metropolitan Opera will be complete.

The Met's longtime music director is scheduled to conduct six productions in the 2014-15 season, a return to his typical workload before the spinal injury that sidelined him for two years.

After that injury in 2011, no one knew whether Mr. Levine would return. Last year he surprised even his doctors, however, recovering enough strength to pick up the baton in May, when he conducted a Carnegie Hall concert from a podium custom-designed to accommodate his motorized wheelchair.

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He led "Così fan tutte" and "
Falstaff
" earlier this season, with "Wozzeck" scheduled for March, and will continue to conduct from a wheelchair next year, though said he is increasingly on his feet with the help of a walker.

"I feel better and better," said Mr. Levine, who is 70 years old. "I don't have any pain."

Taking on more operas next year, he said, "seemed like the natural thing to do."

ENLARGE

Next season's Met performances will include John Adams's 'The Death of Klinghoffer,' seen here in an English National Opera co-production.
Richard Hubert Smith/English National Opera

Mr. Levine said his physical therapy will continue "indefinitely," and he continues to look for the right balance in his rehearsal, performance and therapy schedules.

As he becomes reintegrated at the Met, he is considering new goals for himself and the company. "I also have unfulfilled old ones," he said. But pressed for more detail, he demurred. "It's too new."

Mr. Levine's expanded presence at the Met comes as the company rebounds from a misstep that hurt box-office revenue and girds for labor contract negotiations this spring.

The company this season reversed that price hike, and officials say they have seen an uptick in attendance. Next season, they will again try increasing ticket prices, but this time more gingerly—raising them 2% to an average of $160, still well below the average ticket of $174 last season.

"In order for the Met to survive as a business, we have to be able to increase our prices a little bit,"
Peter Gelb,
the Met's general manager, said. "By raising them slightly, we believe we will not experience price resistance."

Next season, Mr. Levine will conduct one new production:
Mozart's
"The Marriage of
Figaro,
" directed by
Richard Eyre,
which will kick off the season on Sept. 22. He will also conduct five Met revivals and three Carnegie Hall concerts.

On New Year's Eve, the Met will open a new production of
Franz Léhar's
operetta, "The Merry Widow," starring
Renée Fleming
and directed by Tony Award-winner
Susan Stroman,
making her Met debut. The season will also feature the Met's first-ever performance of
John Adams's
"The Death of
Klinghoffer,
" based on a 1985 cruise-ship hijacking.

Asked if he would consider bringing composer
Charles Wuorinen's
buzzy adaptation of "Brokeback Mountain" to New York, Mr. Gelb said he received a video of the opera last weekend and planned to review it.

Mr. Levine said he had studied the score for the opera, which had its premiere last month at Madrid's Teatro Real. "I love the score," he said, but added that he couldn't yet say whether it would be a good fit for the Met.

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